The Woman Who Disturbs

Michèle Mouton shook up the motorsports scene. She doesn't like to talk about her past, but that's because she's busy working to change the future.

- ELANA SCHERR

I first learned about Michèle Mouton when I was in my early 20s, just about the same age she was when she first got in a race car in 1973, the inaugural year of the World Rally Championship. The race was the famously difficult Monte Carlo Rally, and Mouton was navigating for a friend. She said she had no idea what she was getting into: "When he first asked me if I wanted to co-drive for a rally, I said, "What's rally?"